Is electric really the answer?

[C8RKH]

Very little copper in the cabinet. Very little copper in the cables (given the size of the cables. But scumbags will be scumbags.

I do believe we should bring back tougher punishment.

You steal, you lose your non dominant hand. You steal again, you lose the other one.

Simples. Straight forward and much cheaper than pampering them in prison for months.

We need real deterrents.

[Chillidoggy]

4 hours ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

Admittedly Copper is at an all time high price, but you ain’t going to get much out of a charger, for all the risk and aggro involved.

They must surely have to distract all those poor irate buggers waiting to charge up their battery from the last remaining charger that’s working.

[exeterjeep]

The beginning of the end for Jaguar (not forgetting the massive reduction in dealers..) 

On a FB post for yesterday...

THE END OF AN ERA...Sad day indeed. Jaguar's last internal combustion engined saloon and sports cars were completed today at Castle Bromwich, ahead of the marque's electric reinvention...bad management decision?....Will this be the beginning of the end of this iconic marque?...how will future prices of classic Jaguars be affected ?

Will electrification go well for them or will they just die.

 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

JLR fail: they’ve put the cars in the wrong positions for the photo.

[exeterjeep]

Lotus made the same error for their shot of the last Elise/Exige/Evora.

[C8RKH]

Potentially very interesting news. Are we seeing Geely realise that there is life left in combustion engines? Will this allow a rethink at Lotus?

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/sustainability/363317/renault-and-geely-join-forces-all-new-ice-and-hybrid-powertrain-production

[blindside]

Or is it just a realistic dose of Chinese business pragmatism. Always hedging their bets. Lotus is just a small cog in the overall infiltration plan.

 

[mg4lotus]

On 24/05/2024 at 09:23, jonwat said:

Electric car chargers out of action as thieves cut cables 

Back in Jan 6th I reported on here about thieves cutting off the charger cables, after a couple of months they were replaced and shortly after that they were cut off again. Probably the ones mentioned in the article. Well, last week they have been replaced again and after a week they are still there. So, either the newly fitted cameras are doing their job or the scumbags aren't making enough money out of it.

Now I put my tin foil hat on. The street lamp has some shielding fitted around it, presumably to protect from radiation or electro-magnetism. Is it safe to be near a charger when it is in use? You can see the shadow of the lamp post on the green box so it is not as close to the charger as it looks in the photo.

[Nick Sticks]

If there was excessive radiation etc the network cable to that camera would need more shielding rather than a few power wires feeding the street lamp.
The covering on the street lamp is more likely to be an impact protector though how effective that would be is anybodies guess.
https://safeindustrial.co.uk/search/lamp+post/
 

[C8RKH]

The street lamp will be on a separate electrical circuit to the chargers, and was likely there before the chargers were installed.

I've asked one of our engineers re the installation, and he says that the barrier is most likely to stop simultaneous contact that could result in a shock if a fault were to occur.

We've not seen one done like that before (we install charge points) and it looks like overkill.

If you look, the "head" of the lamp post has been converted to use low energy LED's so the voltage in the lamp post should not be that high and will be between 40w and 240w.

 

[mg4lotus]

Aha, that makes more sense. The only thing I could equate it to was a degaussing device with a ferrite core that you sometimes see on leads for IT equipment, but on a larger scale.

[pete]

BBC News - Biden hits Chinese electric cars and solar cells with higher tariffs

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-69004520

So Biden has put a 100% tax on Chinese EVs, now we should follow suit

[Kimbers]

We aren't yet (but will) but EU are just about to!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpww6w412n7o

[Techyd]

What would that do to Electre and Emeya prices, or are these considered a domestic product or something???

[Bibs]

VW moving back to ICE...

https://www.thedrive.com/news/vw-is-shifting-billions-from-ev-plans-to-gas-car-development

[C8RKH]

20 hours ago, Techyd said:

What would that do to Electre and Emeya prices, or are these considered a domestic product or something???

They are imported from China, so would be subjected to the same tariffs, so would be more expensive.

As ever, this is about protecting their US and EU domestic producers - Ford, GM, Peugeot, Renault, Mercedes, VAG, Etc. from cheaper imports. Hey guys, it's the 1970's all over again and home market protectionism is back on the agenda - not that it has EVER been off it for the US or the EU.

[DarrylV8]

It looks like a 20% uplift on Geely (Lotus) EV cars from July in Europe 

[Bibs]

This money is going out of our pockets directly to the government, right? So much for their enviromental policies which definitely aren't just about revenue generation

[C8RKH]

Of course they aren't. Don't forget how many hundreds are added every year to your energy bills to provide subsidies to renewable energy companies. It's never been about the environment, it's just a scam to give cash to the boys...

[mg4lotus]

I saw an article that stated Volvo (Geely) would be moving production to Belgium to avoid the tariffs. I'm not sure that it would make economic sense to do the same for Lotus.

[Escape]

Volvo cars already has a production center in Belgium. And another one for Volvo trucks. Not sure if they're building any of the EVs, mostly XC60 I thought. But easy enough to alter production if that would avoid the extra taxes. Several other Chinese manufacturers (like BYD) are setting up production in Eastern Europe. 

I'm in favor of the import taxes to limit the influence of Chinese (government controlled) companies. But it's an interesting question what will be done with the revenue. Knowing the EU, not much useful...

At least I'm getting paid to take my Lotus around Flanders to 'inspect' railway projects that received EU funding. 🙂 Mostly to electrify lines, so it's sort of on topic. Never mind those lines will still be used predominantly by diesel trains, as none of the connections are electrified. As you can't really load or unload a freight train when it's under a catenary. 😁

[exeterjeep]

I wonder though if these factories in Europe are just final assembly shops with all/most of the parts being shipped from China.

[Escape]

Of course they are. Far more efficient to have one place produce all the parts (especially if it's in China) and then ship them around the world for local assembly, rather than have actual production on a far smaller scale in different locations.

[pete]

Never heard of this

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/QMRUmHRaKHJyGZyA/

[Escape]

War is always good for technical innovation...

The main advantage seems to be the limited requirement of air/oxygen to run the engine. Making it ideal for use in a torpedo. But probably limited, otherwise it would have seen use in submarines as well. Electric might have been the answer for the U-boots at the time, but it certainly wasn't without problems so I'm sure a lot of research was done trying to find alternatives. Ultimately leading to the nuclear powered subs a few decades later.